Chattanooga Slays Comcast, Wins Right To Offer 10Gbps Internet For $299/Month

When Google released its Fiber Internet service five years ago, it was quite something to behold. While most of us were dealing with modest broadband speeds (or worse), the big G was offering Internet speeds that could max out our home routers. At 1Gbps, Google was allowing people to both download and upload up to a theoretical 125MB/s, which is what most hard drives will peak at. It's still impressive.

Not long after Google began hitting some cities with gigabit Internet, we began to see a number of other companies follow suit. Unfortunately, almost all of these are ISPs that focus on a certain area, so a wider rollout is in most cases unlikely. One such ISP is Chattanooga's EPB Fiber Optics, which also unveiled 1Gbit service in 2009 despite stiff opposition from Comcast.

While ISPs were still in the process of rolling out 1Gbps services, Comcast thought it'd be a good guy for once and introduce 2Gbps service. For those who are serious about their Internet and have the cash to spare, that service would be hard to avoid, even if it's akin to making a deal with the devil.

Well, that is unless you happen to live in an area that EPB covers, as it's now one-upped - ahem, five-upped - Comcast by offering a 10 gigabit service.

10 Gig Residential service is available TODAY for $299/month. #NextNet #WeAreGigCity

— EPB_Chattanooga (@EPB_Chattanooga) October 15, 2015

On its website, EPB says: "EPB Fiber Optics brought gigabit speeds (1,000 Mbps) to “Gig City” in 2010 with our community-wide fiber optic network. Today, we’re multiplying that speed by 10 and announcing 10 gigabit (10 Gig) Internet service. Residential service will be available anywhere in EPB’s service area for $299 per month with free installation, no contracts and no cancellation fees."

$299/mo is a lot of money regardless of Internet speed, but for those with shared households, or businesses, that could be considered a steal. 10Gbps is equal to 1.25GB/s, or speeds that a fast PCIe M.2 SSD would be required to handle all at once. Like Comcast's 2Gbps service, EPB's 10Gbps service will require special, almost exotic (for the home) hardware to handle these speeds. Fortunately, 10Gbps Ethernet has been available in the enterprise for many years, so sourcing equipment shouldn't be too complicated. However, 10Gbps gear is expensive, so it's notable that EPC is touting free installation.

Somehow, my 300Mbps connection is actually beginning to look a little bit lacking. With services like these rolling out, it truly does go to show how things can be.